Tag Archives: oil costs

The Bush initiated invasion of Iraq has been a major factor that has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone. Dr. mamlouh Salameh, an adviser to such organizations as the World Bank and tue UN Industrial Development Organization, told the British newspaper, The Independent, he estimates without the war in Iraq, the price oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel. Goldman Sachs predicted recently the price of oil might possibly rise to over $200 a barrel which means the era of inexpensive oil is now over.

Dr. Slameh, told a parliamentary group last week that three years prior to the war in Iraq being launched, Saddam Hussein had offered the United States a deal that would have opened up 10 new giant oil fields on “generous terms” in return for lifting the sanctions against his country. Dr. Salameh believes the American government had a different view which entailed occupying Iraq and gaining possession of its oil.

Chris Skrebowski, editor of the Petroleum Review commented: “There are many ifs in the world oil market. This(Salameh’s belief) is a very big on, but there are others. If there had been a civil war in Iraq even less oil would have been produced.”

We are in the blame game pose in which various groups or people issue comments that blame this or that factor as the cause of an increase in oil costs. There is little doubt Bush’s Iraq blunder is a major factor, but so is failure of successive American government since 1973 to assume leadership in weaning the nation away from its dependence on overseas oil. The United States needs a president who will be blunt, honest, and offer oil alternative solutions. John McCain is defnitely not that president.